BAGUIO CTIY (Mar. 30) — The New People’s Army-Ilocos-Cordillera criticized the United States government for accusing the NPA of maintaining or protecting marijuana plantations in the Cordillera.

In a statement, Martin Montana, spokesperson of the NPA’s Chadli Molintas Command dismissed the allegations as a “typical psywar tactic” of the US military. He added that the US is accusing the NPA to be involved in the illegal drug trade for a greater military intervention in the country.

“It is no different from the lie spread by George W. Bush that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for the US to wage a war of aggression against Iraq. The whole world knows that the US imperialist’s actual motive, of course, was none other than Iraqi oil,” Montana said.

Montana added that corrupt officials and members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) are the godfathers of illegal drug trade in the country. “Let us give credit where credit is due. Narcopolitics is an indictment of the present crumbling semi-colonial and semi-feudal system in the Philippines, not of the thriving revolutionary movement,” Montana said.

Montana also said the unabated illegal drug trade in the country proves that the AFP and PNP are not only tolerating but actually abetting it. He said news reports show that shabu markets are openly set up even in the national capital region right beside police stations or the mayor’s office, such as the one in Pasig City.

“Despite the police rigmarole of raiding drug dens, the masterminds go scot free. Evidence are blatantly and conveniently destroyed so as to erase connections to the godfathers. Notorious drug suspects are known to have simply walked out of detention from PNP headquarters in Camp Crame. Captured drug dealers easily buy back their freedom from corrupt cops and judges,” the CMC statement read.

Montana further said that areas where the NPA operates are free of marijuana plantations or of the illegal drug trade. He said that the NPA has been conducting educational campaigns in their expansion areas among peasant masses driven by desperation to plant marijuana to cover for their losses from traditional agricultural crops due to trade liberalization. # via NORDIS